The technique disclosed in this specification relates to a robot apparatus, a method of controlling the same, and a computer program, which is engaged in activities in user's daily life in order to perform life support, such as household chores, welfare services, nursing care, assistance services, etc., for example. In particular, the technique relates to a robot apparatus, a method of controlling the same, and a computer program, which performs handing-over interaction of an object with a user.
To date, robot apparatuses that are designed to carry out fixed tasks and installed in factories, etc., have been widespread. However, in recent years, robot apparatuses capable of performing various kinds of work are being realized. A robot apparatus in the latter case is applied to various fields, such as welfare services, nursing care, assistance services, for example, and brings a desired object for a physically handicapped person, etc., in order to hand over the object to the person.
However, even if a robot apparatus grasps an object in an easy way to receive (or an easy posture of an object to receive), and tries to hand over the object, a recipient user sometimes finds it difficult to receive the object. Also, there are cases where an object to be handed over involves danger if handed over inadvertently, such as in the case of a cutting tool, a cup of hot drink, etc.
For example, proposals have been made on a method and apparatus for handing over goods, in which an easy way for a robot to receive goods is presented to a person, and the goods are handed over from the person to the robot by an easy way without using a visual device (for example, refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-21588). Also proposals have been made on a robot grasp control apparatus which controls a robot arm so as to receive goods from a person (for example, refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-219161). On the contrary, no proposal has been made on the point of handing over goods from a robot to a person. Also, in this method for handing over goods, it is necessary to attach a wireless tag to the target goods, and further, it is necessary to get the goods closer to or contacted a reading device to check a positional relationship, and to display the relationship to a person, and then to hand over the goods at an instructed position by the person. Accordingly, in order to achieve handing over of goods, it becomes necessary to implement various devices and procedures, and thus it is thought that applicable cases are limited.
Also, a proposal has been made on a technique for modeling daily commodities in consideration of comfortability of a recipient at the time of grasping and handing over (for example, refer to Yamanobe, et al., “Grasping of daily commodities in consideration of comfortability of recipient at the time of handing over”, (the 29th Annual Conference of the Robotics Society of Japan (Sep. 7 to 9, 2011))). In this technique, descriptions have been given that information for each primitive, such as an operation section, a holding section, etc., of a daily commodity, such as a mug, etc., is described in a structure description language format, a priority of each primitive is determined for selecting a primitive, and a plan of a grasping position and posture should be made after determining a position of an object in consideration of influence given to the recipient. However, there has not been any specific disclosure on a method of making a grasping plan.